Friday, May 9, 2014

Fact-Checking the Torah -- Answering claims

We were talking about Exodus 21:7-11 and I said that the
Bible, the Mishnah and the Gemara combine to heap moral as well as economic
disadvantages on the man who takes out a bond on a naarah, an underage girl, as
designated bride of himself or his son.

The philosophical issue is this.I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase “an
exception that proves the rule.”

That’s a misquotation.The actual phrase and concept is that when a legal code specifically
addresses a given situation, there is an opposite situation it does not address
which has the opposite characteristics.“An exception that proves that a different rule also exists.”

When American law discusses drunk driving as something that
a person can be punished for, it implies that driving without being drunk is
allowed.So if you think it is stupid
for states to keep changing their legal codes, first to deal with using a
hand-held phone, then for smart phones, then for iPads, then for tablets, what
you are seeing is this concept in operation.If the police pulled somebody over under a cell phone law, and found out
the driver was using a tablet, they might not be able to file charges if the
state doesn’t have a law covering tablets.Same for eating while driving, which is even more common and equally as dangerous
as driving while texting.

But no state has a law explicitly saying that it’s OK to
drive when you’re not drunk, drugged, or distracted.That’s the opposite of the illegal exception
that the legal code does discuss.

When Jewish law puts all these conditions on bonding a
naarah, that’s the exception.None of
the restrictions apply to the bogeret.We’ll see this again and I’ll point it out when we get to it.

The flip side is that while onatah can refer to a bogeret,
it can’t refer to a naarah.

Now.You’re saying
“methinks she doth protest too much.”Somebody had to think it was all right to have sex with underage girls
based on verse 10.Three standard
situations are involved in this claim.

First, everybody knows it was once illegal for women to own
property let a lone vote.But times
change and the law changes with them.This can also happen in Jewish law, as shown by the Mishnaic and
Talmudic restrictions on child marriage.People who claim Jews approve of marrying off underage girls now in the
21st century are deliberately ignoring this.The way to handle it is to challenge them for statistics on such
marriages.They won’t have any.

The second situation is citations and this will get you the
most bang for your buck, no matter what subject is under discussion.Ask the claimant for the book, chapter and
verse in Jewish classics that says so.One of three things will happen.

You’ll get an answer but you won’t be able to find it in
Jewish classics.That’s because the
claimant copied from an invention possibly centuries old.He thinks it’s true because he doesn’t have
the education to check it for himself.He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

You’ll get an answer, but it won’t say what the claimant
says it says.It might not even be on the
same subject.That’s because the
claimant copied from an invention possibly centuries old.She thinks it’s true because she never even
read the material.She doesn’t know
what she’s talking about.

These two situations cover 100% of the quotes that you do
get.The third situation is that the
claimant won’t be able to give any quotation.

The third situation is this: polygamous marriage
was prohibited to Jews in the middle ages.The claimant needs to point to halakhah, the Jewish law currently in
force on the subject.That’s not
possible.There is no halakhah applying
to modern Jews that allows them to marry underage girls.The claimant won’t know that.

The reason the claimant stopped with the inventions and
didn’t do the homework is because that wasn’t the point of the claim.The claim was made to be titillating and
defamatory.The claimant doesn’t care
that it’s defamatory.